


Here's to the cold deep in my bones

by Silfrvarg



Series: Master thieves and private eyes [1]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 20:00:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17752535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silfrvarg/pseuds/Silfrvarg
Summary: Juno Steel had always thought that he’d probably end up dying this way.Well, maybe not exactly like this.Being chained from his wrists and locked in a walk-in freezer hadn’t exactly made the top ten of his most likely ways to die. Yes, there was a list. When you spent as much time thinking about dying as Juno did, you made a list.





	Here's to the cold deep in my bones

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "locked in a freezer" for Bad Things Happen Bingo.  
> Warnings for Juno Steel levels of suicidal thoughts.

Juno Steel had always thought that he’d probably end up dying this way.

Well, maybe not _exactly_ like this.

Being chained from his wrists and locked in a walk-in freezer hadn’t exactly made the top ten of his most likely ways to die. Yes, there was a list. When you spent as much time thinking about dying as Juno did, you made a list.

If there’d been a way to bet on his own cause of death, he probably would have put good money on bleeding out. Maybe in a ditch, maybe behind the dumpsters in a dirty alley, maybe in his own bathtub. Laser blast to the head had seemed like pretty good odds too.

Still, the details might be a bit different, but he supposed the general gist of it wasn’t too far off.

Juno Steel would die alone.

And he was alone. Even the thugs that had chained him up and beaten him half to hell hadn’t stuck around, they’d just left him here. In the cold, and the dark. To die.

See that’s what happens when you make a habit of pushing away everyone who ever cared about you, of pissing off everyone you meet so no one even tries to get close. Congratulations, Juno Steel, you succeeded. You got exactly what you asked for and you’re going to die here, alone and forgotten and maybe that’s exactly what you deserve, maybe you’ve had this coming for _years_.

Maybe he should close his eyes, stop fighting the cold, stop fighting the darkness, stop fighting the bone deep ache and the blood on his lips and just give into it.

It’s not like fighting it was doing anything. They’d strung him up _good_ , the chains were tight around his wrists, tight enough that they bit into skin and drew blood, hot and sticky until it froze to his skin. His toes just barely touched the ground, if he stretched and strained, he could just manage to keep his weight on his feet rather than his shoulders.

He hadn’t had the energy to try, not since they broke two ribs on his right side. It was easier to just hang there. Painful, sure; his shoulders were screaming in agony and he was frankly surprised neither of them had been dislocated. Yet.

His entire body hurt, but not as much as it should. That would be the cold, he supposed. Made sense, industrial freezers tended to be, well, _freezing_.

At first it hadn’t been so bad, he hadn’t really noticed the cold over the pain of the beating that the men who caught him were dishing out. They hadn’t been trying to kill him, they’d just wanted him to _hurt_ , and they’d done a great job of it.

As the beating dragged on past unpleasant into downright nasty though the cold had started to set in, biting and burning and almost more painful than the broken and cracked ribs. Almost. After that, well, they’d kept hitting him, but he hadn’t really felt it anymore.

That didn’t seem like a good sign if he was being honest with himself. Then again, being honest with himself never ended too well for him, so maybe he was better off ignoring it.

Well, not better off, ignoring the reality of his situation wasn’t going to stop him from freezing to death, but at least he wouldn’t have to think about it.

It wasn’t like there was anything he could do about it anyway. He couldn’t get out of these, chains, he’d tried. There was the plasma cutter sewn into the hem of his coat of course, but he didn’t have any way of reaching it, much less using it, and no amount of struggling was going to get those chains of his wrists. All he’d succeeded in doing was making them bite deeper into his skin, making fresh blood drip down his arms again.

Trying to escape was only going to make him hurt more than he already did. It wasn’t going to save him. There wasn’t a way out of this one, no way to escape his chains, no way to call for backup, no way to turn the tables on his captors because they’d already left.

There was no way out, and that was…

Almost a relief.

If there was no way out, then he didn’t have to feel bad about giving up.

He didn’t have to feel bad about thinking that it was easier this way, that it was better to go out now than to keep dragging it out.

This was a simple case, open and shut smuggling ring, nothing the HCPD couldn’t sort out once he was gone, hell, if they manage to find his body before the smugglers disposed of it, he might even make things easier for them by dying.

The only life on the line this time was his own, and that wasn’t worth much of anything these days.

Sure, there were people who’d probably be sad about it. Rita, Mick… actually, that was about it. Neither of them would be _surprised_ though.

Rita… _that_ he felt bad about, he could admit it, but he’d never deserved her, not really. She’d be upset, she’d mourn, but she’d be okay, better even without him dragging her down.

Mick of all people had to know this day would come, that eventually Juno’s luck would run out, that sooner or later, either his enemies or his own demons would catch up to him.

It felt like he’d been on borrowed time since as long as he could remember, clawing and struggling against the whole damned world, but mostly against himself, against something deep and empty inside of him that beckoned like the void, that whispered and laughed and sounded a little like Sarah and a lot like himself.

Yeah, it was… easier this way. He was done fighting.

He was done.

* * *

 

Really, dying isn’t so bad. It’s just darkness, and numbness, and pain lingering like a distant memory.

At least until the light hits him, blinding and burning and crawling inside his skull like it wants to rip him apart. He slams his eyes shut with a groan.

When he works up the courage to open them again, it still burns, his eyes water, but slowly, shapes appear. Shadows alongside him, one in front of him, light everywhere else. Slowly, the shadows resolved themselves.

They’re pig carcasses. Either Hell is real, and it happened to look exactly like the god damned freezer in which he’d died in, or he’s still alive.

“-istah Steel! Wake up! Please please please don’t be dead!”

He looks at the voice, and it’s Rita, in his face, or as close as she can get while he’s still hanging from the hook at any rate.

That’s when he knows he’s still alive, because even if there actually was an afterlife, he knew there was no way that Rita belonged wherever he was heading. And part of him wants to close his eyes again, to get back to dying, but he can’t, because Rita is _right there_ and she’s begging for him to be alive, and…

He can’t disappoint her like this. He can’t just, give up. He has to survive this. Somehow.

He tries to speak, but all that comes out is something that’s too pathetic to even be called a groan. So he tries again.

“I’m still here.” He manages to get out, and even that much is nearly enough to exhaust him.

It’s worth it though, to see the relief on her face, “Right! Just, stay that way, please. I’ll get you down from there.”

He’s about to ask how she intends on doing that, he’s not that much taller than her but she doubts she can reach the chains either way. Turns out she didn’t need to, she just needed to find the controls to lower the hook automatically.

 “Smart. Knew there was a reason I hired you.” He slurred out with what he hoped was a smile but might have been a grimace.

As the hook came down, he fell to his knees and he hadn’t realized just how much his shoulders were hurting from supporting his weight until they suddenly weren’t.

Ouch.

“Come on Mistah Steel, the ambulance is on it’s way, or it _better_ be if they know what’s good for them! Still, we gotta get you out of this freezer. Can you walk?” Rita asks, her hands fluttering like she wants to touch him, but can’t see a way of doing that without hurting him.

He pauses for a second, tries to take stock of his body, which would be significantly easier if he could still _feel_ his body.

“Maybe,” he says with a frown, “I can’t really feel my legs right now, but I’m pretty sure they’re still there. I can try.”

“Ok. Ok that’s good, we can try.” Rita says, and she’s helping him up as gently as she can.

He tries to get his legs underneath him, and he falls, so he tries again, and again, with Rita’s help, until he’s up. He’s mostly leaning on her by now, and he feels bad about that, but she must be stronger than she looks or she’s just that determined because she’s half carrying him through the door and out of the freezer, talking all the while. He thinks it’s about one of her shows, he can’t tell, to busy focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, but it’s nice just to hear her talk.

Finally they get out of the freezer, and it’s a good thing too, because Juno doesn’t feel like he’s got another step in him. He slumps against the wall outside the freezer and let’s gravity pull him the rest of the way down with an exhausted sigh.

There’s something warm on his shoulders. Rita’s taken off her jacket, a furry, spotted monstrosity, and draped it around him. He opens his mouth to argue-

“Don’t you even start with me Mistah Steel! You were in that freezer a _hell_ of a lot longer than I was. Besides,” she says with a teasing smile, “It suits you. Really brings out the colour in the bruises on your face.”

Well. There’s no way he can argue with that, so that leaves only one thing to say.

“Rita… Thanks.”

There’s a lot he doesn’t say. He’s not just thanking her for the jacket, not just thanking her for half carrying him out here or getting him down in the first place. He’s not even thanking her for finding him, not really.

He’s thanking her for looking in the first place, for caring about him when he can’t. He’s thanking her for… well, just for being her.

He can’t put it into words.

He doesn’t have to.

She knows.

“Anytime, Mistah Steel.”

**Author's Note:**

> Story title from Epilogue by Keaton Henson.  
> Find me at silfrvarg.tumblr.com if you want to send me prompts for Bad Things Happen Bingo, or just have my various hyperfixations inflicted on your feed.


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